Personnel
Barbara J. Friesen, Ph.D., Co-Principal Investigator
Jean M. Kruzich, Ph.D., Co-Principal Investigator
Adjoa Robinson, M.S.W., Project Manager
Pauline Jivanjee, Ph.D., Consultant
Project History
1994: Response to federal priority: Focus on residential treatment
1995-96: Focus groups with family members, residential providers, and youth
- Rich information about experiences of family members with residential programs
- Informed conceptual framework and development of questionnaire
1996-98: Questionnaire development (focus group findings and family consultants).
1998: Focus enlarged to include participation while child is living at home and receiving services.
1999: Collected data from nearly 500 families through a 2-step process:
- Willingness forms distributed through family organizations
- Questionnaires mailed to willing families
- Incentives for return (publications)
- 61% return; 56% usable
2000: Questionnaire recruitment, distribution, collection, and data entry completed by April, 2000. Data analysis begins.
Project Purpose and Methods
This project was originally designed as a pilot to develop and refine research design and procedures for a study of family participation in the residential treatment programs in which their children were enrolled. Several project activities have been completed: (1) Analysis of focus group data, and preparation of articles for publication; (2) measure development and data collection from nearly 500 families through a written questionnaire; (3) preparation of data for analysis. An article entitled, "Family participation in residential treatment: The views of African American families" was completed and submitted for publication.
Considerable effort has gone into the further development of a questionnaire designed to measure the participation of family members across settings. A decision was made to expand the original project focus (and measure development) to include situations when children are living at home as well as when they are in out-of-home treatment. This decision was made because it appears that an instrument that can be used to measure family participation in a variety of service settings will be more useful to the field than a sole focus on residential treatment. Further refinement of the conceptual framework for the measure for this expanded perspective now addresses the following dimensions:
- Family participation in educational and service planning (all settings);
- Family participation through receiving services (all settings);
- Family participation through maintenance of parenting functions.(out-of-home placement only);
- Family participation through maintaining contact with the child (out-of-home placement only).
Pilot testing of the instrument was conducted by engaging family members in an intensive review of both the content and format of the questionnaire. The mailing list for the Research and Training Center was refined in preparation for conducting the study, in order to identify parents and parent organizations within the mailing list.
The questionnaire has been distributed through a two-step process:
1. A sample was recruited from the Research & Training Center mailing list, and from selected family organizations across the country. Five regions of the US were established and family organizations from each region participated in recruitment of subjects. This sample consisted of family members who agreed to receive and complete the questionnaire. The status of the child (at home, or in out-of-home care) was ascertained at recruitment, allowing us to include sufficient numbers of each category. This step also provided a more realistic basis for computing the return rate than if we were to mail the questionnaire directly to families and family organizations, since the sampling frame will consist only of those who have agreed to participate.
2. Questionnaires were mailed to the sample of family members. Analysis will focus on these major tasks:
- Describing the experiences and perspectives of family members whose children are in out-of home care, thus addressing the original intent of the project;
- Development of a measure of family participation across settings;
- Assessing the relationship between family participation and a variety of process and outcome measures obtained from caregiver report;
- Comparison of two versions of the Family Empowerment Scale (a newer version is shorter and somewhat simplified in response to feedback from families and professionals of a variety of ethnic backgrounds).
This cross-sectional study utilized a convenience sample recruited through a randomly selected family organizations within 5 regions of the US and involved family caregivers as respondents.
Family member consultation about dissemination was obtained at the Building on Family Strengths conference held in Portland, OR on April 6-8. Participants were asked to respond to the following questions:
- Who (what audiences, e.g., families, service providers, administrators) needs to hear about the results of this study?
- In what form should findings be disseminated?
- How can this information be used to make needed changes?
- Which aspects of change re: family participation are most important to focus on (e.g., school/mental health relationships, training of providers, support for families, others)?
Questions we will be addressing in the analysis:
- What is the experience of families with regard to participation
in treatment or service planning and review?
- In educational planning and review?
- Are these experiences similar?
- What barriers to participation do families identify?
- What supports family participation?
- What barriers and supports are most important? To which families?
- Does the experience and participation of families vary by custody status, living situation, demographic characteristics, and other factors?
- What do families identify as goals they hope their children will achieve by age 21?
- How optimistic are they that their children will reach these goals?
- What explains the differences among families with regard to goals? Expectations?
- To what extent did service planning include attention to the needs of all family members?
- What services did families get?
- What did they think about them? Were they helpful?
- What is the relationship between family participation and
Satisfaction with service planning?
- The extent to which family caregivers expect that their children will achieve important goals?
- Caregiver empowerment?
Preliminary Findings
Presentations
Note: These are Microsoft Power Point presentations saved for the web and may not work properly with older web browsers or without the necessary plug-ins.
Family Perceptions of Educational Planning for Children Receiving Mental Health Services — Building on Family Strengths Conference, Portland State University, June 2003
Barriers and Supports to Family Participation: What Residential Treatment Providers Need to Know — University of South Florida, March 2003
Family Perceptions of Educational Planning for Children Receiving Mental Health Services — Research Directors' Meeting, Office of Special Education Programs, July 2002
Family and Youth Perspectives in Mental Health Services and Research — Australian Association of Social Workers, Hunter Branch, March 2002
Out of Sight, Out of Mind? Perspectives on Parent-Child Contact During Residential Treatment — University of South Florida, March 2002
Parent-child Contact in Out-of-home Placement: Implications for Practice and Policy — Society for Social Work Research, 6th Annual Conference, San Diego, CA, January 2002
Research in the Service of Policy Change: Past Accomplishments and Current Efforts — Building on Family Strengths Conference, Portland State University, May 2001
Family Participation in Service and Educational Planning: A Brief Measure — University of South Florida, February 2001
Predicting Family Participation in Service and Treatment Planning for Children in Out-of-Home Care — University of South Florida, 2001
Publications
Jivanjee, P., Friesen, B.J., Kruzich, J.M., Robinson, A., & Pullmann, M. (2002). Family participation in systems of care: Frequently asked questions (and some answers). CWTAC Updates, 5(1), 1-8.
Friesen, B.J., Kruzich, J.M., Robinson, A., Jivanjee, P., Pullmann, M., & Bowles, C. (2001). Straining the ties that bind: Limits on parent-child contact in out-of-home-care. Focal Point, 15 (1), 20-22.
Latest Updates
The purpose of this project is to study the experiences of families whose children received services for their serious emotional and behavioral disorders. Data was collected from 500 families across the country. Project accomplishments include the development of a measure of family participation across settings. The focus of current project efforts is the dissemination of findings about family participation and contact between parents and children who are receiving out-of-home care.
Results from focus groups conducted with family members whose children were in residential treatment, emphasizing the responses of African American parents, have recently been published:
Kruzich, J.M., Friesen, B.J., Williams-Murphy, T., and Longley, M.J. (2002). Voices of African American families: Perspectives on residential treatment. Social Work, 47(4), 461-470.
This article is available online through some library databases that provide access to full text documents.
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